This weekend we had the Raleigh Marathon and Half Marathon and it was a blast ( I didn’t participate of course!) but I was in awe of these people from the highly trained 26.2 mile runners to the equally awesome 13.1 mile runners, my wife Kelly included who ran her first half marathon in 2 hours 38 minutes, and she sprinted the finish. And lets not forget the 10K runners.

I have only once been up close with marathon runners as I tried to navigate the streets of Raleigh a couple of years ago while in the middle of one...... they tend to close the streets for them. But that was nothing compared to seeing the start of the race with 5000 runners of every size, shape and wacky costume lined up ready to take off. The adrenalin was pumping as they counted down to the Seven AM start and just like that they were off to run the streets of Raleigh. Kelly was running to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society with Team in Training and she raised a total of $3375, sixth highest in her group who raised a grand total of more than $122,000.

I saw all kinds of groups and teams running to raise money for different charities and it was heartwarming to see them put out such effort and equally important to see the crowds of spectators cheering them on encouraging them with shouts of “you’re doing great” and the ringing of cowbells.

The City of Oaks Marathon in Raleigh is now it’s it sixth year and looks like it is on course to grow each year, the weather was perfect, nice and cool and they even opened up some spots for runners of the cancelled New York City Marathon which a few folks drove down to compete.

Raleigh is a wonderful city with a lot of great activities, the marathon just one of them, it also has great restaurants, museums, and an ever growing population filling the many condo and apartment building downtown. It has won many awards over the years and now has two big employers moving into the downtown area, I’ll bet there’s some runners in there.